Ever feel like the world’s a mess? Say a little prayer and spread a lot of love with an optimistic set of prayer flags. 

A prayer flag is simple enough: a panel of cloth imprinted with text or images strung to spread that sentiment to whomever the wind touches. Quilter Vivika Hansen DeNegre, who started The Prayer Flag Project, calls them a “living, breathing, kinetic journal of our hopes, dreams and concerns.” They’re meant to fray in the elements, their ends left unstitched to unravel into the impermanence of time.

The world, on the other hand, is not simple enough. There is a lot to be concerned about these days. Embassy uprisings spurred by a propaganda hate film, for one. An election that’s as much about the elected as it is our fundamental value system, for another. Entire nations are in crisis. It seems that we, as a globalized humanity, are at a turning point. What direction are we going to take: the good, the bad, the better?

Let’s aim for the latter and spread that hope far and wide. Because when it rains, it rains on everyone. It doesn’t make choices.

You, on the other hand, have an array of choices for sending messages of peace out to whomever the breeze catches.

Miranda Gray Studio‘s prayer flags are made of organic cotton, and meant to be flown for the protection of the garden, bees and creatures in the sea. She uses egg tempera as a medium, created by grounding the pigment into a paste with water and then mixing that with the yolk of a chicken egg.

Jersey Murmurs’ modern prayer flags are digitally printed on heavyweight cotton twill fabric. They are the “physical representation of our prayers and petitions,” including the musings of poets, mystics and feminists.

The Group Prayer Flags from Touch the Earth graphic art studio are hand crafted and hand printed on silk. They are then strung up on black cord with brass bells. Here are the flags in a seven grouping (for earth), three grouping (for trees) and lone polar bear.

Finally, Pantie Party‘s prayer flags:

Don’t let the panties fool you (or offend you). They are actually made from discarded paper and plastic grocery bags. The prayers themselves are the conversations and experiences of women, as recorded by the artist’s female friends. Creative reuse and communicative art? Sounds like an answered prayer.

Image: Jersey Murmurs

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